The Visit (a memoir)

Each step down the hall feels heavier than the last, the rattle of the orderly’s cluttered keyring exacerbating my unease. Men and women in white coats saunter past, faces fixed on paperwork. Orderlies barge through the last double door dragging a screaming young man bound in a straightjacket. The orderly holds the door ajar and I squeeze through.

‘I’m sorry.’ When I try to wrench my shoulder free, he squeezes tighter.

‘Stan.’ The orderly’s calm voice soothes my galloping pulse. ‘What have we told you about harassing other patients’ visitors?’

Stan approaches him. ‘But ah know ‘im.’

I slip deeper into the octagonal room, gagging at the stench of urine wafting from the carpet. Two opaque glass panels conceal an assortment of people slouching in floral recliners and plastic chairs. Every eye is fixed on a cracked flat-screen TV.

A young woman, scars sutured across her face, slams a door and storms towards me.

‘FARCK! I can’t get ’nee farckin’ peace ’round ’ere!’ Rachel charges past me and slams her fists against the nurse’s window. The repeated thud drowns out the TV.

Keys rattle. Two orderlies approach her. ‘Calm down, Rachel.’

‘I’ll carm the farck down when sumone gives me a farckin’ reason to farckin’ carm down ya farckin’ fag!’

A nurse slithers through the double doors, needle poised.

I turn away, trembling. As Rachel’s screams subside, a voice booms from the TV. I wrench the remote from a patient’s shaking hands and clamp the mute button. An eerie silence permeates the room.

‘Andrew?’ Blackened eyes peer out from behind the shaggy stubble and unkempt grey hair of the man slumped in the nearest recliner.

It can’t be him! But the daggy yellow t-shirt, navy-blue stubbies, and teal jacket draping his skeletal body are a sucker punch of confirmation. ‘Hey, Dad.’ I kneel beside him, tears threatening a downpour. ‘What have they done to you?’

‘Oh, Andrew, you have to get me out of here.’

I groan. ‘You’re here to get better, Dad.’

His eyes dart from patient to patient. ‘I’m nowhere near as bad as these people.’

I want to agree with him. But images of my last visit paint my memory like the faeces he had smeared across his bedroom wall. I wipe away the tears streaming down my face.

Beside Dad, a man snores, drool running down his chin. I nod towards the courtyard door. ‘You wanna head outside?’

Dad’s glazed eyes flicker to life. ‘Yep.’

I rush towards the door. When I turn back, my jaw drops. Dad’s stick-thin arms judder as he struggles to lift himself from the chair, mirroring Grandad’s attempts in the nursing home. Dad used to be fit! I rush to help him, my mind chasing speeding questions around a well-worn racecourse.

Hot air thaws my frozen body as I shove open the heavy door. A green shade cloth diffuses the sun’s penetrating rays, a loose corner admitting beams that wilt the courtyard’s sole plant: a browning banana tree. Threadbare grass clings to life at the edges of a square of black sand littered with cigarette butts.

Dad’s worn thongs slap his heels. ‘It’s bloody hot out here.’

‘And it’s freezing in there.’

He groans. ‘You’ve gotta get me outta here.’

My chest tightens. I’d give anything to take him home. But he won’t get out of bed, take his meds, or feed himself. ‘You’ll get out as soon as you’re better. What do your doctors say?’

Dad paces the courtyard, face morphing from child-like innocence to snarl and back again. ‘What do they know? They dope me up so much I feel like a zombie.’

A shawl of silence cloaks us, our eyes darting around the courtyard for something to discuss besides the obvious. I check my watch: I’ve been here less than five minutes and already I’m eager to leave. ‘Has Melissa come to see you?’

His hands fidget. ‘Nobody ever comes to see me.’

My eyes narrow. Melissa had phoned to say he’d asked to see me.

Dad stands and resumes pacing the courtyard.

Sunlight glints off the opening door. Stan shimmies through clutching a cigarette and lighter.

I sigh. So much for privacy.

Stan’s cracked-mud lips clamp the cigarette, his calloused hands cupping its tip. He pauses, glances at Dad, then me, and back again. His eyes ignite with clarity. ‘Ah tol’ yer ah’d seen yer before.’ He points to Dad then me. ‘Yer and him. Yer the same. How come there’s two a yer?’

I shudder. I’m not like Dad. I’m not going to end up in this nuthouse.

"The Visit by Andrew Levett, WA is the Winner! As it happens, The Visit also explores a father-child relationship within a residential care setting, though in a different context. The narrator here visits his father in a mental health facility, confronted both by the environment and by seeing his dad so unwell. This is an excellent piece of memoir, establishing setting and character very effectively and giving us access to the narrator’s feelings in highly economical ways. The dialogue is particularly well written. This work challenges us to think about things we may not want to consider. It addresses an important and very topical issue for our time in a powerful way."